Hello reader!

Faerie Fire is an absolutely incredible spell, but it very quickly starts getting resisted by anything. Are there things I can do to make it more reliable? Being able to strip invisibility/concealment from single targets is incredibly useful.

metamagic heighten and persistent could help

Allied Spellcaster on everyone, or use a tactician class to give it to everyone, or Azata it on everyone. Your casters will want this anyway, so it's a good investment.

spell penetration, greater spell pen and mythic penetration will help a lot too (if you're an elf, there is a racial feat for it too). There are also a lot of items that raise the spell penetration (enough to bypass most enemy resists).

My understanding of how spells work is they roll a D20 and add their spell resist, and if that exceeds the DC of the spell then it gets resisted - right? I could be horribly wrong, I've never played D&D before and this game is still very arcane to me. Faerie Fire is only DC17 or so. :[ Does Heighten increase the DC of the spell?

Originally posted by Super Cosmic Space Magnet:

My understanding of how spells work is they roll a D20 and add their spell resist, and if that exceeds the DC of the spell then it gets resisted - right? I could be horribly wrong, I've never played D&D before and this game is still very arcane to me. Faerie Fire is only DC17 or so. : Does Heighten increase the DC of the spell?

The caster rolls d20 + caster level + penetration bonuses from Feats/gear to beat the target's Spell Resistance.

So while you could increase your spell penetration in different ways mentioned here already, there are other ways to deal with concealment. True Seeing, Communal True Seeing, Blindfight, Echolocation (can be cast on others by an Alchemist/Brown Fur Transmuter too), among other spells and abilities.

Or my favorite strat: nuke the area. If they're just concealed, you'll know where to aim. If they're invisible, many damaging spells will show a visual effect when you hit even though it won't reveal them... so you know where to aim your next spell should they survive the first. Or you can make them walk through wall type abilities like Kineticist Wall, Blade Barrier, Wall of Light, etc. The AI doesn't know how to walk around them.

Originally posted by night4:

Originally posted by Super Cosmic Space Magnet:

My understanding of how spells work is they roll a D20 and add their spell resist, and if that exceeds the DC of the spell then it gets resisted - right? I could be horribly wrong, I've never played D&D before and this game is still very arcane to me. Faerie Fire is only DC17 or so. : Does Heighten increase the DC of the spell?

The caster rolls d20 + caster level + penetration bonuses from Feats/gear to beat the target's Spell Resistance.

So while you could increase your spell penetration in different ways mentioned here already, there are other ways to deal with concealment. True Seeing, Communal True Seeing, Blindfight, Echolocation (can be cast on others by an Alchemist/Brown Fur Transmuter too), among other spells and abilities.

Or my favorite strat: nuke the area. If they're just concealed, you'll know where to aim. If they're invisible, many damaging spells will show a visual effect when you hit even though it won't reveal them... so you know where to aim your next spell.

Wait, so the spell DC doesn't mean anything? :o

Originally posted by Super Cosmic Space Magnet:

Wait, so the spell DC doesn't mean anything? :o

Faerie Fire doesn't have a saving throw. So increasing the DC doesn't do anything. You just have to get past SR.

And increasing the DC of a spell (say through Heighten) doesn't increase spell penetration. You use the same spell pen for a level 1 spell as you would for a level 10 spell.

Interesting - thank you! I also just five minutes ago finished my first completed playthrough of the game